How do you import multiple sets of tab delimited text into your form?

Question

Is there an easy way to bring in form data from a text file of data values(tab delimited) with multiple instances of each variable?   In my current project, I would like to bring name, address, phone, etc data from the text file for a couple hundred people into a PDF form which I create and format to my given specs.  I know I can import the text and select which instance of the variable I want to populate the similarly named fields, but I was wondering if I could appropriately name or create the various fields in the form so that it would auto populate each subsequent instance of the variables with the next line of data?.  In this case, I want to end up with a nicely formatted address book.
Thanks!

Answer 1

It is possible but not just a simple import of data.
Each form field in the multiple page PDF would need a unique name not repeated on another page of the PDF. Fortunately the Acrobat form standard includes the "template" object and this object can be spawned or used to add a new page with the form fields automatically renamed with a prefix string of the page number and template added to each form field on the new page. So if one were to import a row from your tab delimited file into the template, one could then spawn a new page from the template with the data and rename the fields so there would be no conflict of like named fields.
A Lesson in Templates for Adobe Acrobat by Dave Wraight
With newer versions of Acrobat there is a mail merge feature.
Create PDFs from Word mail merges